Live While You're Young
by Prisoner of Azkaban711
Summary: Written for the Quidditch League Season 4 (Round 3) - Sirius' boredom leads him to team up with the Weasley Twins, and as expected, chaos ensues, much to the dismay of Remus.
Author's note: This is written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition Season 4 (Round 2) "Word Restricted Team Pride". This one is pretty much a free-for-all, except that it has to include the object in our team name – in our case, Tornadoes. I really enjoyed writing this one in the end, so I hope you guys enjoy it.

Task: Include 'Tornadoes' somewhere in the story and the word count must be between 2001 and 2250.

Final word count (excluding A/N and line breaks): 2134

Disclaimer: I, unfortunately, do not own Harry Potter.

"I'm bored," Sirius groaned for at least the fifth time that day.

He was sat in Grimmauld Place's dark kitchen, nursing a half-empty bottle of Butterbeer in one hand, and absentmindedly picking at the table's chipped varnish with the other. Remus was sat to his right, reading the latest edition of the Daily Prophet, and occasionally making noises of disbelief at the articles.

"I know you are, Sirius," he replied nonchalantly, not looking up from the pages of the newspaper.

Sirius huffed at Remus' indifference to his dilemma. He'd been sat in the house for weeks, unable to do much more than attend Order meetings, sit with Remus, and consume a rather large amount of alcohol. He needed something to do to alleviate this sense of tedium that seemed to plague his existence.

Sirius took a long sip of his drink whilst thinking about what he could possibly get up to. There wasn't really anyone around at that time either, except for Moony. Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny were out with Molly, whilst Arthur and the other adults were at work. In fact, other than himself and Remus, the Weasley twins were the only other people left in the house.

"Say, Moony," Sirius said, voicing his thoughts out loud, "don't you think that Fred and George are a lot like we used to be?"

This seemed to catch Remus' attention. He closed the pages of the paper and folded it, before placing it down on the wooden table top. He considered his friend for a minute before saying:

"Sirius, whatever you are thinking of doing, just don't, okay? The last thing you need is to be scolded by Molly for dragging her sons into some ridiculous game that you've decided to play out of boredom," Remus said fairly firmly, hoping that Sirius would take the hint. "Besides," he continued, reaching forward and grabbing the Butterbeer bottle from Sirius' hand, "if you're really that bored, you could always help the rest of us with the cleaning. It is your house after all."

Sirius scoffed in obvious rejection to that suggestion, and then glared at Remus as he finished off the remaining liquid in the bottle.

"You could have just gotten yourself another one," Sirius huffed quietly as Remus stood up, tucked his newspaper under his arm and moved towards the half-open door.

"Yeah," he said, a small grin beginning to form on his lips, "but annoying you is a lot more fun."

As he moved around the table to leave the room, Remus chuckled at the childish pout that Sirius was giving him. He clasped his friend's shoulder for a second, before leaving the Animagus to his thoughts.

Sirius sat and looked longingly at the empty bottle in front of him, thinking over Remus' words. He shouldn't really drag the twins into anything, although they didn't seem to need a lot of help on that count. But, a little fun couldn't hurt that much, right?

OoOoO

"On three?"

"Yes."

"Okay… 1, 2, 3 – Now!"

Fred broke the small glass orb on the side of the wardrobe, as George looked on in anticipation. Fred ran back to where George was crouched behind his bed, cautiously raising his head above the mattress to watch their creation begin to work. It wasn't that they weren't confident that it would work as planned, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

Out of the shards of pale grey glass that littered the floor, grew a swirling, billowing mass of grey clouds. Quickly, the mists shaped and moulded themselves into a swirling tornado, which stood about fifty centimetres tall.

Identical grins were plastered on the twins' faces as watched the small whirlwind spun around the dusty carpet in the middle of the floor, sending the all the ancient dirt and dust flying into the air. The view in front of the twins became somewhat hazy, but they were still beaming at their success, so they didn't really care.

However, when the tiny storm began to travel towards the pile of papers to the side of Fred's bed on the other side of the room, panic began to set in. All of their plans for their new little collection of joke products flew up into the air and circled the top of the tornado, before flying out of it at an incredibly fast speed, given the size of the storm.

Fred and George had to duck multiple times to avoid being hit in the face by the flying sheets of paper. They looked at each other, now slightly less impressed with their creation.

"Okay, time to stop it," Fred said, fairly loudly, over the roaring sound of the circling winds. Even though the tornado was very small in relation to real ones, the wind speeds and volume seemed to be closer to that of a regular-sized one. That would definitely need some work.

George raised his wand and uttered a spell. Immediately, the tornado began to shrink, the bottom of the column lifting off of the floor and disappearing into the swirling winds at the top until there was nothing left.

Fred and George stood up from their hiding spot and walked around the bed to assess the damage.

The dirt and grime that had been whipped up from the carpet were beginning to settle back down, clearing the air in the centre of the room. Papers lay around the edges of the room, where they had been thrown by the miniature storm.

"Well, it works," Fred said, the grin reappearing on his face as he turned to face his twin, "though it definitely needs some work on the wind speed…"

"Yeah, definitely," George replied, still looking around at the papers and small piles of dirt, "though, if it isn't very popular as a prank, we might have to go into the cleaning business because it has got the dirt out of the rug really well."

Both redheads laughed at that comment as they started to perform spells to tidy the place up a bit. They really didn't want their mother to find out what they were doing up there because she would never approve of it.

As Fred made sure that all the sheets of parchment went back into their original pile, there was a knock at the door.

"Oh, damn it," Fred said, as both he and George rushed over to the door.

"Who is it?" George asked, trying to sound as natural as possible, but still looking quite wary.

"Sirius," came the answer from the other side of the door, allowing the twins to let out a deep sigh of relief. Sirius would never rat them out to their mother, so that was good news. "I heard some fairly weird things coming from in here. What are you guys up to?"

"Nothing," came the dual response, which of course sounded rather suspicious to the older man.

"Really?" he replied sceptically. They could almost hear it in his voice that he'd raised an eyebrow to emphasise his disbelief at their answer.

They looked at each other, questioning whether or not to let him in. If anything, he might actually help them with their flourishing business idea, and he certainly wouldn't turn them in.

After a few seconds of mental conversation, George shrugged in a silent 'Why not?' and Fred nodded in agreement. He carefully turned the knob and pulled the heavy door open, revealing Sirius, who was stood with his hands in his pockets.

He looked at them with a questioning look, before asking:

"So, what's really going on?"

Fred and George ushered him inside, before shutting the door again to prevent anyone else finding out what they were doing.

"Merlin's beard…" Sirius muttered quietly, eyeing up the mess that still covered most of the floor.

"Err, yeah, sorry about that," Fred said, rubbing the back of his neck and hoping that Sirius wasn't going to flip out on them for destroying part of his house.

Sirius dismissed it with a wave of his hand, clearly not bothered by the mess, but rather what had caused it.

"Seriously, though, what happened here?" Sirius asked, folding his arms and looking at the twins expectantly.

They glanced at each other quickly, before George sat on the floor and produced a small red bag from under the bed. Out of it, he pulled another tiny glass orb, identical to the one he and Fred and tested earlier.

Sirius could tell that there was a story behind this, so sat opposite George, legs crossed and an expectant expression on his face.

"This is our latest product innovation," George said proudly, holding the orb aloft.

"It's a miniature tornado that you can use for… well, pretty much anything really," Fred continued, watching as an impressed look covered Sirius' face. "We just did a test run, and it actually works. Though the wind is still a little strong…"

Sirius grinned at them, completely awestruck at the genius of the two boys in front of him.

"I told Lupin that you two were just like we used to be," he said, his grin becoming even bigger. "How did you even come up with that?"

"We took the phrase 'storm in a teacup' quite literally. Although, it's turned out a little bigger than intended, so I don't think it would fit in a teacup anymore," Fred said, obviously glowing at being praised for making mischief.

"But, it can destroy a laid table quite nicely," George added, thinking about the potential applications of their newest creation.

"Well, I'm impressed," Sirius said after their little explanation, "and also, I'm in. If you guys want to test it for real, I will help you with anything you need."

Fred and George looked at each other again, before mirroring Sirius' grin and nodding in agreement.

Sirius thought back to what Remus had said before. He was simply inspiring the newest generation of pranksters. Completely harmless fun.

OoOoO

"What did I say? I believe I said 'don't get the twins into something ridiculous, Sirius'. If that wasn't something ridiculous, Sirius, would you like to tell me what is?"

Sirius tried to hide his grin behind his hand, but he feared that his trembling shoulders were already giving away his suppressed laughter.

He watched from behind as Remus continued to pick pieces of scrambled egg from his hair and using his wand to clean up any sauce stains that had marked his clothing.

Sirius and his new partners-in-crime had decided to use the tornado prank at breakfast the next morning, and it had, as a test-run, been an incredible success. It had been less successful when Molly had yelled at them so much, all three of them were left with ringing in their ears. And now Sirius was having to put up with an extra lecture from Remus.

"I think you missed a bit," Sirius said innocently, pointing to a piece just above Remus' left ear.

"You're pushing it, Black," Remus responded through gritted teeth, turning to face him and using Sirius' last name to let him know that he'd overstepped this time.

Sirius' smile diminished slightly. He'd always shared in the success of pranks with Remus, James and Peter. Now that Remus was the only one left, and he seemed to find everything too serious these days, the Animagus was unsure of how to feel. He didn't deny that it was a dark and potentially dangerous time, and there wasn't much to have a laugh about, but he did still recognise that it shouldn't stop them from making each other smile every once in a while.

"I just miss how things used to be," Sirius said slowly, no longer smiling, and looking at Remus with a sincere expression.

"I know, Sirius," Remus replied, finally letting his anger subside a bit, "so do I. But we're not children anymore."

"But they are," Sirius countered, gesturing in the vague direction of everyone's rooms, "and we live in such dark times now. I was just trying to encourage them to have fun now. While they're still young."

"You are living proof that you don't have to be young to play a few pranks," Remus replied, a small smirk growing on his lips.

"Moony, are you calling me old?" Sirius responded, placing a hand over his chest in mock-indignation.

Remus just grinned at Sirius' fake-offended expression, his anger now having almost completely gone.

"I wasn't actually joking, Moony, you have still got egg in your hair," Sirius said, looking directly at it.

Remus sighed as he pulled the last piece from his hair. He knew that no matter what he said, Sirius would continue to do stupid and ridiculous things. But that was who he was, and Remus wasn't willing to let anyone, including himself, change that.


End file.
